By Emma Okocha
“This is it….the Final Curtain Call, I will be singing for my fans what they want to hear. I will see you in July’’

— Michael Jackson, in London, for his last sold-out London concert billed to hold this July.

“By reading Shakespeare, I can gather that he did not like lawyers, preferred drinking to eating and evidently lusted after both genders.

But I certainly do not have a clue as to whether he favored Protestantism or Catholicism or neither, and I do not know whether he believed or disbelieved in God or resurrection. His politics like his religion, evades me but I think he was too wary to have any.’’ —Harold Bloom.

“Before Barack Obama in Politics , Oprah Winfrey in the Media, Tiger Woods in Sports, Michael was the first to break the color lines. While Muhammad Ali confronted the system, Michael was silent in his own struggle and in the end brought the world together.’’

— Reverend Al Sharpton at the Harlem Apollo Theater Wake for the King of Pop.
When Elvis Presley died at the age of 42, from complications of drug overdose, the music died. A decade later, the greatest phenom on the Beatles pantheon train was confronted by one of his fanatical fans.

John Lennon who had compared the popularity of Beatles with Jesus was shot point blank at the lobby as he materialised from his New York apartment. John died beckoning on mankind to give peace a chance. Was his death not the end of psychedelic freedom, the last of the street innocent love, the end of an era?

Not satisfied with its Shakespearean complicating plots, ironies, tragedies and never resolved persistent human conflicts, both on the actor’s stage, or in true life; good old, unpredictable Fortune  last week, stole into the Sunshine state of California to close a contract with one of the few enduring immortals of the stage, dance, music, television and the movie camera.

The same Fortune that gave the world Elvis, in one compound make up; a beautiful face, an overthrowing sexual presence, evergreen melodies, has landed town.

Expect nothing but agony, mischief and utmost cataclysm when she decides to wrestle and force the return of her immeasurable gifts ravished on some of her favored prodigies.

The succulent rhapsodies and instrumental musical dexterity of John, and his enduring charisma which marked him out of the rest, were the quantum gifts that could only have come from the gods.

The same jealous gods can only share those gifts or snatch them back from the selected few. In their often painful rules, kingdoms are allocated and sons of carpenters are suddenly catapulted and from humble parentage many of the gifted mortals have on the final day perfected into immortality.

On the other hand, the vexed goddess would wrought Armageddon and cause a high price of holocaust if she found her favored one was ascending too fast as to displace her position in heaven. Good old fortune would always find a way to recover those gifts when threatened by the perfection of their creation.

For according to the Greek mythology, Alexander the Great was the Prince who was so gifted and beautiful. Both men and women were tempted by his person and aura. He was blond. Upstairs, his Italian nose was decorated with blue eyes.

He was a master war strategist, probably the greatest General of all times, who was formidable in both land and sea. His forces conquered the ancient world and Alexander was building an empire from the Mediterranean to the Far East when the gods felt threatened.

They did not waste time to waste him at the young age of 32.
Therefore, when the jealous gods arrived California on that indelible 25th day of June, 2009, fortune’s scheduled eerie appointment with history claimed the life of the last of the century’s diamonds.

It was to be last dance of the seven dimensional “Atilogu’’ maestro, the magic man who was going for his last moon walk before the eyes of the planet.

Away from the tumultuous stage, deep on the other side of the rowdy arena the restless millions and the true followers who had for more than four decades, worshiped at the King’s stage and reveled in his extraordinary craft waited with all expectations.

Malicious Fortune smiled when the lonely and stressed King complained of chest pain and when his live in doctor, reported a slow pulse.

Fortune the wicked, brandished the sealed secret and signed papers of the contract between the King and the gods.

Before the agents of death would open the sealed contract, the King who must have had a premonition of the devices of his envious visitors decided for the purposes of preparing his beloved fans for the worse, to make an announcement.

“This is it…the final curtain call. I will be performing the songs my fans want to hear. And with the last battle cry and still in tremendous pain and raising his clenched fists, the King of the world and the moon, declared, ‘’I see you in July.’’
The combat was one sided.

The King whose major arsenal included some cotton white gloves, some narcotics, a combined Brigade of children commandeered by a domesticated python and equally friendly Chip could not match the gods who have been here since Homer and his Iliad.

Fortune who came to town to take away the King did not waste time to deliver the terms of the contract.

Michael Joseph Jackson knew he was dying. He was not the first god man that changed history.

He was not the first gifted soul, who had from his early childhood recognized his life mission.

Like Alexander the Great, Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Kaduna Nzeogwu, Patrice Lumumba, the Jah King, Bob Marley, the South African leader, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, in their different contributions to the making of our history, eventually, must pay the heavy price.

Most of the time, these demi gods stake for the skies and the gods demand as their own return to the bargain; the supreme sacrifice. Michael was the last of diamond of the century.